Monday, January 01, 2007

Monday 01/01/07 A.M. Quickie:Happy New Year! (Now Give Me My Bowls!)

Happy New Year! Late posting today, but I wanted to comment on two things:

(1) NFL: OK, the Chiefs making the playoffs (or, more accurately, the Broncos completely muffing the playoffs) was a shocker. And though there's no doubt that KC earned it (with by far the toughest Week 17 matchup of any AFC Wild Card contender), Denver completely crapped the bed on this one. KC fans must be thrilled.

Over in the NFC, there might not have been much drama after the Giants clinched the No. 6 spot on Saturday, so how awesome was the Lions-Cowboys result?

(A) The Cowboys swipe the mantle from the Giants for "Least Momentum Heading Into the Playoffs." (B) The Lions manage to bungle the one thing – top draft position – that they really needed. Even when they win, they lose. Unbelievable. I think it's official that rooting for the Lions is the worst fan position in the NFL.

(2) New Year's Day Bowls: As I've said before, the Arkansas-Wisconsin game is a proxy for the BCS title game:

If SEC tops Big Ten, it's one more piece of data that the Big Ten sucked this season and the SEC was terrific. If Big Ten tops SEC, the Big Ten has been underrated and Florida's SEC title-game win isn't what we thought it was. (Meanwhile, the game features the two best RBs returning in college football next year: Darren McFadden and PJ Hill.)

Rose Bowl: I'm torn. As a Big Ten alum, I almost always root for Big Ten teams in bowl matchups. And I absolutely hate USC. But as a Florida fan, I want to see Michigan get beat, if only to end the whining that they somehow deserve to be in the national title game.

Fiesta Bowl: How can you NOT be rooting for Cinderella non-BCS team BoiseState to beat big bad Oklahoma and finish the season as potentially the only unbeaten team left?

Join in the comments for your bowl-day observations and analysis. Like me, I assume you're parked in front of the TV, too. Happy New Year!

UPDATE (5:45 p.m.): OK, so Wisconsing beating Arkansas (in what can only be described as one of the least entertaining bowl games I've ever watched) is a huge win for the Big Ten -- and erodes at least a bit of SEC haughtiness from the Bowl Season (and BCS title game).

After all, wasn't Wisconsin supposed to be vastly overrated? Weren't they supposed to be hardly a "quality win" for Michigan, let alone Michigan's "best" win of the season? New reality: Wisco just beat an Arkansas team that was the 3rd-best team in the SEC and one that many (including me) had thought extremely highly of.

It's Wisconsin's first (and only) quality win of the season, but suddenly makes Michigan's win over Wisconsin that much more impressive. (Nevermind that still only makes 1.5 quality wins for Michigan this season -- better-than-we-thought Wisconsin and worse-than-we-thought Notre Dame. But certainly fodder for the argument that the Big Ten isn't being dragged down by Wisconsin being overrated. (God, I'm going to miss college football until next September.)

44 comments:

Why was it that when Cory Lidle died there was round the clock coverage and now with Darrent Williams there's barely a mention on TV or the Internet. Is it just due to an overabundance of Sports related stories today or should the race card be thrown out there????

Is it just due to an overabundance of Sports related stories today or should the race card be thrown out there????

Stop it. When Corey Stringer died, there was round the clock coverage. Before they knew it was Corey Lidle in the plane, a lot of the news organizations covered it becuase it was a reminder of 9/11 (the whole plane flying into a building). It's people like you who prevent any real race issues from being discussed by irresponsibly throwing out the race card.

Dan, a lot of people are not rooting for Boise State. Those people realize that Boise State will be blown out by Oklahoma because they do not belong with the big schools. Oklahoma is a much better team than the 2004 Pitt team that played Utah. One big reason Boise State is playing in this game is that they didn't play anyone this year. A lot of people in America don't root for teams taking the easy route.

No mention of the team that lost the most (besides Denver)? C'mon, the Chiefs were the LAST team the Colts wanted to face in the first round (before someone says something about San Diego, they couldn't meet in the first round).

The Colts only hope is that they have a slim lead at the end of the game and Herm Edwards' clock management skills become a factor.

"Which playoff teams would trade their starting QB straight up for Brett Favre for the postseason?"

Chicago: In a heartbeat.Dallas: Parcells would think about it, considering Romo's recent play.Philly: No, got to stick with the Ewing Theory/Hot Hand of Garcia.Seattle: Probably not. Although Holmgren would be tempted.New Orleans: DoubtfulGiants: I think they would

Chargers: They'd consider it (Rivers is essentially a playoffs rookie), but ultimately wouldn'tColts: Uh, no.Pats: Uh, no.Chiefs: If they didn't have Damon Huard sitting behind Trent Green, they'd think long and hard about this one.*Ravens: Only if they were concerned about McNair breaking down.Jets: Only if they were concerned about Pennington breaking down.

*Then again, how hard could it be to simply hand off to Larry Johnson every play?

...sigh, it's going to be tough seeing Brett in a jacket and tie next year.

You've got to mention the Bengals' choke job somewhere. I'm sure Houshmandzadeh is mouthing off somewhere about how they are still the best team in the AFC despite their 8-8 record. Maybe Ray will send him a ticket to the Ravens' game so Housh can sniff the playoffs.

Things aren't looking good for the SEC right now.PoSU 20, Tennessee 10 with just over a minute left.Wisconsin 17, Arkansas 7 just before halftime.Auburn 17, Nebraska 14 with 6:44 remaining in the game.

Slaton hurt, White hurting, not to mention the worst secondary ever has this Mountaineer fan having a horrible Gator Bowl day so far. Let's hope the 2nd half is a little better (but I'm not feeling good about it sadly)

A lot of people in America don't root for teams taking the easy route.

If it were so easy... well, you know the rest.

Dan, please stop implying that only an idiot could believe Michigan worthy of the BCS game. They were wrothy. Admit it. Only, so was UF--and there had to be a choice.

That said, go USC, since it would make this next week much less annoying assuming Arkansas gets beat. The combination of Arkansas losing, Tennessee losing, and Michigan winning would send ESPN into a death spiral of "should a victorious UF even be considered the champs" that might send me on a 10-state murder run.

ahhhh, piece of cake, WVU victory, haha. It's going to be another fun year next season and if that D can get a little better, it'll be even more fun. Now it's time for my 11-1 bball team, it's college basketball season now!

I was up in NH all weekend, visiting a friend who doesn't have cable & has a terrible internet connection. Essentially, I was cut off from the world from 2pm Friday until just now.

Darrent... Williams.... killed???

I'd like to see a thread dedicated exclusively to athletes and their terrible, terrible lifestyle decisions. Maybe it could be a running blog over 2007, somehow. It's getting out of control, and it's devastating.

I'm a Steelers fan, and never have really cared for the Broncos... and really, all I know about Darrent Williams was that he was young, and susceptible to double moves, but an up-and-coming corner on a very good defense. From what I've read in the last 15 minutes, he was a good kid, too. All I can sit here and do is think about him, and others like him who made seemingly one-time terrible decisions. Len Bias comes to mind.

Anyway, enough weepy shit. Just thought I'd throw that idea out there - not tracking bad decisions for the sake of mocking them, but for the sake of making a difference somehow.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.